What you really want
1. Celebrate the small victories They actually aren’t small at all! The best part about being a writer is writing, not publishing or being interviewed or having your author photo taken. The satisfaction of blocking out time, holding yourself accountable to your goals and putting words on the page isn’t contingent on an agent’s approval...
Avoid like the plague
A cliché may be defined as a phrase whose aptness in a particular context when it was first invented has won it such popularity that it has become hackneyed, and is now used without thought in contexts where it is no longer apt. Clichés are notorious enemies of the precise word, and thus are by...
Notes to self (for sharing)
I’m always wary of sounding bossy when compiling lists of advice. So what follows is a kind of ‘note to self’ which I hope will work for others too. These points generally reflect the times when I’ve gone wrong (based on a ‘learning through mistakes’ principle), as well as some writing touchstones which I suppose...
Sow the weeds
These are my best tips for writing non-fiction. I haven’t the faintest idea how one approaches novels or stories, and the below is probably terrible advice for fiction writers, who just seem to need a lot of time. 1. Writing is a job The worst thing you can do for your writing is get precious...
Why read on?
The author of The Following Girls, a tragi-comic novel of shrinking horizons, dangerous alliances and not-so-happy families in 1970s Britain, shares her tips for approaching fiction. Be wary of all rules. When pressed for tips, novelists can become astonishingly dogmatic – usually extrapolating from their own working practice: “never use adverbs”, “avoid flashbacks”, “shun exclamation...
Dogs good, children less so
Paula Lichtarowicz’s debut novel The First Book of Calamity Leek is an inventive, macabre and fantastical story about a young girl who compiles her own guide to life on escaping her cruel confinement in a secret garden where she and other girls have been kept brainwashed and misinformed, and where popular musicals are a sinister...
Harness the magic
Lucie Whitehouse’s latest novel Before We Met is a suspenseful story with a chilling climax about a whirlwind romance that unravels and sours as information seeps from a hidden past. Here are her ten rules for keeping the creative juices flowing. 1. Observe Train yourself really to see things. A good way to do this...
Only write
Alison MacLeod’s Unexploded, a compelling novel of love and prejudice in wartime Brighton, was longlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize. She is the author of two other novels and a story collection, and is Professor of Contemporary Fiction at the University of Chichester. She considers her top tips for budding writers. 1. Write the...
